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Chicago teachers strike quickly becomes part of presidential campaign

April Logan walked her 5-year-old daughter, Ashanti, to Mays Elementary but turned back once she realized she didn't know which adults would be watching her child. She said that the kindergartner just started school last week.

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Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he took officers off desk duty and deployed them to deal with any protests as well as the scores of students who might be roaming the streets, but police said there were no incidents on Monday.

Renee Conley, whose husband dropped off their two elementary-age children and a granddaughter at Mays Elementary — where some picketers yelled "don't go in!" — said she doesn't blame the teachers and thinks Emanuel should give them what they want "because he's not in the classroom with those kids."

"They need to be at school and learning," she said. "I don't want my children or others to get off track."

Teacher Kimberly Crawford said she is most concerned about issues such as class size and the lack of air conditioning.

"It's not just about the raise," she said. "I've worked without a raise for two years."

So teachers walked the picket lines at the schools in the morning, then thousands of educators and their supporters took over several downtown streets during the Monday evening rush. Police secured several blocks around district headquarters as the crowds marched and chanted.

The strike quickly became part of the presidential campaign. Republican candidate Mitt Romney said teachers were turning their backs on students and that Obama was siding with the striking teachers in his hometown. Obama's top spokesman said the president has not taken sides and is urging both the union and district to settle the dispute quickly.

Emanuel, who recently agreed to take a larger role in fundraising for Obama's re-election, dismissed Romney's comments as "lip service."

But one labor expert said a major strike unfolding in the shadow of the November election could only hurt a president who desperately needs the votes of workers, including teachers, in battleground states.

"I can't imagine this is good for the president and something he can afford to have go on for more than a week," said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

For two decades, contract agreements have slowly eroded teachers' voices, Bruno said. "But this signals to other collective bargaining units that the erosion of teachers' rights isn't inevitable. They (the union members) are telling them, 'You don't have to roll over.'"

Emanuel, who has engaged in a public and often contentious battle with the union, is not personally negotiating, but he's monitoring the talks through aides.

Not long after his election, the mayor's office rescinded 4 percent raises for teachers. Then he asked the union to reopen its contract and accept 2 percent pay raises in exchange for lengthening the school day for students by 90 minutes, a request the union turned down.

Emanuel, who promised a longer school day during his campaign, attempted to go around the union by asking teachers at individual schools to waive the contract and add 90 minutes to the day. He halted the effort after being challenged by the union before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

The district and union agreed in July on a deal to implement the longer school day, crafting a plan to hire back 477 teachers who had been laid off rather than pay regular teachers more to work longer hours. That raised hopes the contract dispute would be settled soon, but bargaining stalled on the other issues.

Public Employee Unions: In a city with double-digit unemployment, teachers who can't be fired and who make more than double what their students' parents make, have gone on strike. Anyone for school choice?

Public sector unions reared their burdensome and inefficient head Monday when some 25,000 unionized Chicago Public School teachers went on strike, unhappy with a salary the parents of their students can only envy, leaving 350,000 students and their overtaxed parents struggling in the educational lurch.

The Chicago Teachers Union walked away from a contract offer that amounted to a 16% raise over four years for the average teacher when factoring other increases, an offer made despite the fact that the system faces a $700 million dollar deficit at the end of the school year.

John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute notes Chicago's unemployment rate is just under 11% and that the average Chicagoan makes just $30,203 compared with the average teacher's salary of $71,000, even before benefits are included. And unlike parents who go to work each day to be judged on their productivity and who fear each day might be their last, dismissing a bad teacher is harder than spinning straw into gold."

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This is Barack Obama's Chicago.

If you want to make HALF of what the government employees make vote for Barack Obama.